


A Thing With Feathers

by Whreflections



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Alternate Universe- Animal Sanctuary, Consensual Infidelity, Evil Gerard Argent, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-12
Updated: 2020-07-06
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:48:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 15,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23611051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Whreflections/pseuds/Whreflections
Summary: When he quit the only job he'd ever known to try and save his marriage from coming under too much strain, Chris never expected he'd find strain of a whole new kind waiting for him at a little magical wildlife park.  His feelings for Peter haven't changed; he's still in love- so why can't he stop himself from falling in love with an omega who's built his life around taking care of things that could kill him?He can't imagine it ends well- but then, Chris just isn't used to getting what he wants.  He expects that his life has to be hard won and jealously guarded, but that just isn't true.  Sometimes, it all works out.  Sometimes, hope really isn't that improbable or dangerous at all.
Relationships: Chris Argent/Peter Hale, Chris Argent/Peter Hale/Stiles Stilinski, Chris Argent/Stiles Stilinski
Comments: 25
Kudos: 134
Collections: Secret Steter BFFs





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TriDom](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TriDom/gifts).



> Is this a story about magical animals dipped in stetopher, or a stetopher story dipped in magical animals?
> 
> Yes, I think, is the answer to that XD
> 
> Also, nothing is in chronological order, but I've tried to make it fairly clear what's from who's perspective and at what point in time....let's hope it works lol
> 
> It's mostly petopher and pining stargent/pre-stetopher, but the stetopher is endgame- and that end will be here soon lol I really hope you love it, Tri <3 You're amazing!

Stiles met Chris for the first time on the cusp of summer. It was the first morning of that year he could remember that he woke up and stepped outside to feel the sun more than he felt the crisp bite of morning. He couldn’t help but ascribe meaning to that, even if there was none— a side effect of a life so entwined with magic. Sometimes he saw its fingers where they didn’t exist, trick mirrors and off kilter refraction. Sometimes he was right. 

It could have been luck that he was in the store when Chris came in—or it could have been magic again, a nudge in the right direction by virtue of sunlight and the fact that he’d walked the long way around the main compound, come in the back door of the education room and felt the peeling paint by the light switch. He hadn’t meant to paint that day, but if he hadn't then he wouldn’t have been wheeling birds into the gift shop when Chris came in. In the grand scheme of things it wouldn’t have changed much, really—Isaac would have given him his tour and come to get Stiles to see if they wanted to make an offer. Stiles still would have hired Chris; they still would have started working together and gotten just as much out of each other’s company. 

Still, there was something to be said for first impressions and the peculiar charm of circumstance. 

Sometimes, he thought he fell in love with Chris that morning, the first stirrings of it held in a memory so crisp he couldn’t help but replay it. It was all right there, still, close to the surface for him to skim any time Chris was on his mind. When Chris had reached out to touch Nod for the first time his smile had reached his eyes, laughter just barely curving his mouth. The long tattoo on the inside of his right arm had been visible, the subtle shift of the tall grass less flashy than the obvious magic of his wedding ring, still enough to catch Stiles’ eye. 

A fox had been visible in the field, all color and suggested form, no stark black lines. No eyes. Stiles remembered liking its odd, boxy design that somehow didn’t seem out of place; he hadn’t known, then, then if he watched long enough, it would have melted back into the grass. He wouldn’t have watched that long, not with Chris so close.

There was something in the way the sunlight had hit Chris in that instant—morning sun on the brilliant, piercing blue of his eyes, or something in the way Chris had held himself, in the curve of his smile at the sight of Stiles’ dearest friend. Most people didn’t look at Nod like that. 

Maybe he fell in love then, or maybe it was later, watching him work with his hounds, or with the children. Later, helping Stiles move a letterbox caiman nest, muddy and uncaring, eggs cradled against his chest like they were made of china. Later, talking to Hephaestus when he thought they were alone in the same quiet voice he’d caught snatches of here and there when Chris was on the phone with Peter.

Whenever it happened, there was no debating that it had. He fell in love with a married man who’d given him no reason to hope for a chance, unless you counted glances that may or may not have been up for interpretation. Scott called it a crush, but that was orders of magnitude below what he felt—strong and real enough that when Henry came back from Ireland and asked him out to dinner, he barely considered before telling him he was seeing someone. It wasn’t a lie, exactly.

He saw Chris everywhere. 

++++++

Peter hadn’t come to be part of the demonstration. Chris didn’t need his help wrangling the dogs, and even if he had, he’d never once asked Peter’s help for anything to do with his work. Whether that was alpha pride or Argent pride, Peter had never been sure—whatever it was, it didn’t matter enough to worry about. If he’d ever treated Peter like he wasn’t capable of looking after himself, or if there had been nothing else for Chris to work on, Peter might have tackled it, but Chris had never treated him with anything but respect. 

He could tilt toward being too careful with him, still, but they’d made so much progress since they were young. Everyone relapsed, now and then, and the battle Chris carried with the specter of his father in the back of his mind would never be over. Realizing that had done Peter more good than two years of therapy—though whether he could have reached one without the other was a question he didn’t care to analyze. 

Chris had made himself better, for Peter. There was no way around the truth of it; it wasn’t like anything he’d ever been told as a kid. If Chris had worked on his shit for his own sake, it might have gone quicker, or been healthier—it might not have taken him 11 years to realize his job pissed him off more than it gave him purpose. If he’d done it for himself, he’d have done it differently, and maybe that would have been better for both of them, but that wasn’t how it had happened; Peter didn’t see any point in pretense. 

Getting Chris to believe that he was worth the work for his own sake would be the fight of a lifetime. As ready as he was to take anything that threatened to drag Peter down head on, changing himself was inevitable. A roadblock, tackled with the same stubborn focus he brought to research and hunting and antidotes. On some level in Chris’ subconscious, the equation was surely simple—

He loved Peter, and Peter had chosen him. There, his brain probably hitched, but the rest followed—Peter had chosen him, and Peter wanted a mate, not just a husband. 

As long as Chris Argent had a problem and a solution, he could figure out the middle. No matter how long it took. 

That tenacity had made him a wonderful mate, hunter, dog trainer, uncle—Peter had no doubts it would help make him an impressively effective teacher. He’d caught clips of his presentations here and there in Stiles’ videos, but Chris had shied away over and over at offers of his own videos. He’d told Peter as much over dinner again just last night, talking about today. He had no intentions of sharing Stiles’ channel—whether that was more distaste for infringing on Stiles’ space or a lack of interest in the platform was hard to say for certain, but knowing him like he did, Peter would have bet mostly on the latter. 

If not for Peter, Chris would have barely known YouTubers existed. 

The only way he’d get to see Chris doing this part of his job properly, then, was surprise. Technically, he hadn’t even been invited. Chris had mentioned the two of them picking up the kids and bringing them to the park together some weekend, or the two of them having dinner with Stiles. Peter had agreed to both, and neither had yet happened. He didn’t have any complaints, on either front—even after almost a year of having Chris at home every weekend, the novelty hadn’t worn off yet. He wasn’t sure it ever would. 

The time at home had been good for Chris, too, but Peter wasn’t naïve. He was happier, and that had branching roots—some of it was Peter, some of it was the work, and some of it was Stiles. Even without the benefit of video evidence that Stiles looked at his husband like he’d hung the moon, the change in Chris’ voice when he said Stiles name would have given him away as surely as the shift in his scent. 

Chris had never had a close friend other than Peter, so for that Stiles had certainly been a first—but he’d never fallen in love with anyone other than Peter, either. With his Olympic level self-denial, Peter wasn’t even entirely sure if Chris was at the point to parse out for himself which of the two was true for Stiles—which was precisely why Peter wanted to know first. 

If Chris had another hurdle incoming, Peter wanted to see it clearly before they all crashed into it. 

There was only so much he could glean from watching videos—even as well as he knew Chris, there were nuances in person that couldn’t quite be captured, things he could learn from watching Chris at work and around Stiles that couldn’t come any other way. What did he smell like, when he was working? When he looked at Stiles—when he caught Stiles look at him?

It was all more than worth giving up his own work for the day and getting there early, taking a seat on the front row but to the side, opposite the area clearly set up for the children. Fenrir pressed his long body into the space behind Peter’s legs, curling his neck to lay his chin tucked over Peter’s foot. Depending on the angle, he looked elegant, or like he’d broken something. The arrival of a stranger that was surely one of the teachers and the brief presence of a girl going into the staff door didn’t make him so much as twitch a paw, much less lift his head—his weight only shifted at the same moment Peter’s did, drawn to attention by muffled movement behind the door of the building behind the enclosure, and the sudden spike of a scent they’d have each known anywhere. 

Fenrir didn’t get up, but slow sweeps of his whip tail stirred the dirt, brushing up a low cloud. 

If Peter was honest with himself, he might as well have done the same—there was little difference to the jolt he felt when Chris’ eyes fell on him, at least not to the wolf. No matter how conjoined they were, his reaction to Chris always felt slightly out of step with the wolf’s—neither lesser than the other, both overlapping but not quite even, no matter how similar. The wolf’s feelings were never complicated, not about Chris. 

Unlike Fenrir’s lazy greeting, his tail wouldn’t have stopped.

There was startled delight in Chris’ first glance, too, and the beauty in that welcome ramped up the thrill in Peter’s chest, but it carried strongest in his scent—happiness on Chris was warm and rich and still somehow subtle, like pine needles baking under the sun. Red earth and rising heat, renewal that stamped out the memory of winter. Whether Chris smelled so good to him because he reminded him of home, or because home was how his brain processed Chris was a mystery Peter had never tried to solve. It didn’t matter. He didn’t need to know how he smelled to anyone else; he wasn’t theirs. Peter wanted to bury his face in his throat and never let him go. 

Chris reached behind him to push back a narrow nose weaseling its way into the gap, closed it behind him and crossed the enclosure to leave through the gate. For the sake of his approach, Fenrir’s tail gave a final, singular wag. 

“You could have told me you were coming,” Chris said. There was no reproach in his eyes, and no disappointment. Nothing but warmth, and a smile that pulled on his mouth when Peter took the hand he held out and let himself be tugged to his feet. Kissing him wasn’t performative; it was reflex. Muscle memory, and the easy pleasure of knowing he could, and Chris would welcome it. 

The slow rub and squeeze of his palm up the nape of Chris’ neck wasn’t for show, either, but Peter couldn’t have said there was no possession in it. There was always possession, where Chris was concerned. He didn’t have to feel threatened by anyone to want his mate to smell like _his_. 

“If I’d told you, it wouldn’t be a surprise,” Peter said. “You might have changed something.”

“I could still change something now. If you come up there with me—”

“No, I’m observation only.” He smiled as he said it, and still he could feel the shift in Chris’ neck as he started to wonder just what he’d come to observe, a sharp and sudden tension that pulled his muscles taut. For a man whose innocence he didn’t in any way doubt, his propensity to guilt was intense. 

His mouth opened, and Peter cut him off with a nod. “Go; I hear them coming. Get ready for your show.” With a curl of his fingers, he pulled Chris close enough to kiss the corner of his mouth, barely a brush. “Show me how you terrify small children with our dogs.” 

The soft huff of his laughter took some of the tension from him. Peter didn’t regret lying. 

It wasn’t long after Chris had gone back into the building that the stands in front of the enclosure did fill—not enormously, but a little over six rows deep. The murmurs and squirms of the children rose exponentially in only a few seconds, but the gasps from the little audience in front of the enclosure when Chris came out flanked by three enormous dogs didn’t disappoint. 

Their chorus of reply to his welcome was charming. They were a mixed bunch, mingled human and werewolf and at least one other that Peter would have named a naga, at a guess. Perhaps two—there were a set of twins that stuck close together, shifting away from the dogs almost in the same motion as several of the other children tilted forward. 

The dogs all sat, and Chris stepped up to stand closest to Catarina. Her ears flicked back toward the brush of his fingers. 

“As I know Stiles told you up at the office, it’s wonderful to have you all here. This place would have never grown the way it has without support, but it’s more than having the money and effort to put toward rescue. He set out to make a space where people could see animals they might be afraid of up close—it’s hard to stay afraid of something when you can look them in the eye. It’s our hope you might end up loving some of the animals you see here—maybe you already do, but reducing the stigma around magical creatures is his passion. Even though I’ve spent most of my life hunting many of the animals we keep here, my goals haven’t been any different from his—never kill an animal you can relocate, and never kill an animal for acting on its nature. If you learn anything from coming here, that’s what I’d want it to be—we don’t always have to like what they do, but it’s our responsibility to work to understand it, and try and find a way to coexist.”

Even without Peter’s own bias, Chris’ charisma was undeniable—it wasn’t just the children giving him their rapt attention. It only took a glance to see that the teacher and chaperones were just as intent, leaning forward, focused. 

“I’m Chris. This is Catarina—” Chris cupped the back of her skull, thumb rubbing rough through the little swirl of near white cream he loved so much underneath her right ear. She didn’t get up, but her tail banged into his ankles, her neck craned back to watch his face though he was already tilting his chin toward Aspen. “That’s her daughter, Aspen, and the guy that’s about 5 seconds from breaking out of his stay over here—”

Appropriately, everyone laughed. 

“—is Black Ice.” Chris finished, and went to him. Despite whatever tell he’d noticed, he still hadn’t broken—though his foot did rise to tremble as soon as Chris released him, his low murmur in French chased by pats to his half open mouth that might have seemed too rough if Peter hadn’t watched him box with Ice since he was a pup. “He answers to Ice, or Icee for my nieces and nephews. He was still in training when I quite hunting actively, so he’ll probably never be as finished as the other two, but he can pull his weight for the kind of work we want him to show off here. How many of you know what a wolfsbane borzoi does?”

“My brother says they kill werewolves by licking them to death.”

Half the class giggled, half gasped. A little girl on the front row rolled her eyes. Peter liked her instantly. 

“Yes, and no. They _can_ kill werewolves, and you wouldn’t want to let them lick an open wound—but if they lick unbroken skin, it’s no more dangerous to a wolf than if your common housedog licked you. There’s a few secrets to why they were historically so dangerous to werewolves—it’s not just the compound in their saliva they share with wolfsbane. They’re exceptional trackers; they’re particularly attuned to any scent laced with magic. Once their handler directs them, they’ve been known to follow a trail as far as a hundred miles. They are tenacious, unafraid to engage—I’ve had to call all of my dogs out of situations where they would have gone ahead, and they could have gotten hurt. If you take a look at their teeth—” Chris snapped, and tapped the railing, and Catarina rose up on cue, her fine boned feet perching easily on the rail so Chris could pull her lip up in full view of his audience. That time, no one giggled. “—you see how long her canines are? They’re almost twice as long as most dogs of similar size. That makes them a closer match if she should need to get in a physical fight with a werewolf in shifted form—it also helps drive that saliva deep into the muscle if she does bite. The deeper it goes, the quicker it spreads—this is why it’s a good idea to always keep antidotes in the house. Like some of the animals we have here at the park, these guys fall into a grey area. For the right owner, they’re a fine pet or a working dog, but they’re not for everyone, and they’re certainly not for anyone who’d take that power lightly, or use it for the wrong reasons.”

“Is that one a hunter, too?” The child who asked was on the fringes—it was no wonder he’d noticed Fenrir, unenclosed and untethered. Hearing about the dangers, it was no wonder he’d point him out. Peter hadn’t come to insert himself into the show—but he hadn’t expected to go unnoticed, either. 

Chris snapped his fingers, and called Catarina down. “No, that one belongs to my husband. He’s actually a great example of another job these dogs can do—Peter’s a werewolf, so he isn’t the typical owner for this breed, but I raised Buddy from birth to be a personal protection dog specifically for Peter. He had his scent from the day he was born; his devotion to Peter is absolute, and he’s been taught to alert to any threat, human or supernatural. It works well when you do it right, but he’s very much a one person dog, now. I think he likes me alright, but I could disappear out of the house tomorrow and he’d be happy to have Peter to himself.” 

The audience laughed, again—mostly the chaperones. Chris had described him well, but no summary could convey how it had felt to watch Chris gently wrapping a blind puppy in Peter’s oldest shirt, his murmurs low and soft, felt only as vibration in the before Fenrir’s ears had even been open. 

_This is Peter. He’s ours, and you have to take care of him for me. You’ll be good at that, won’t you? I know you will. You’ll be a good boy._

The sweet, sharp ache in his chest was just as strong in remembering. 

Unable to resist, he called out loud enough to carry. “His name is Fenrir.”

“Yeah, and if that’s what you called him most of the time, he might answer to it better—you want to say both and let them judge which one he responds more strongly to?”

“I’ll pass.” That time, the laughter covered the audience and Chris himself, along with a new voice just slipping out of the door. 

Stiles Stilinski. Peter had seen countless videos of him, dozens of pictures on his husband’s phone, but nothing was ever the same as it was in person. He was lanky, for an omega—tomboyish, no curves. Slight enough to belay a bit of his dynamic, but strong through his shoulders. Precisely Chris’ type. 

Even before Stiles, he’d had certain tastes in porn, and Peter had no complaints—with the exception of a few rocky patches they’d largely gotten past in the beginning, their sex life was healthy. Everyone watched porn, here and there, and it was only natural that when Chris did, he’d gravitate toward what he didn’t have. It would have been a lie to say he hadn’t ever felt a moment of insecurity, like most betas who married alphas, but Chris’ attraction to him was undeniable. 

In the last few months, however, Peter couldn’t help but notice that his searches had stabilized, starting broad and narrowing. 

_Alpha beta omega threesome_

_Alpha beta masculine omega_

_Male alpha werewolf beta masculine omega_

It would have been a perfect introduction to the conversation they needed to have, if only it wouldn’t make Chris skitter his own desires off into lockdown at the mere suggestion of possibility. He was far too thoroughly practiced not just in self denial, but self reproach. If he wanted something, he rarely dared let himself consider taking it. 

“Hey guys!” Stiles enthusiasm was infectious, his ease palpable in his smile and the way he draped himself around Ice without even looking, without caring that his teeth pressed against Stiles’ throat when he hugged him. “Who wants to watch these guys hunt Isaac?”

“You’ll notice he didn’t ask Isaac,” Chris said. The nervous giggles from the wolves in the audience couldn’t tear Peter’s attention away from Chris’ smile. Right there it was—every reason he’d wanted to come and see for himself. He’d been fine taking center stage, but the ease that had come over him as soon as he’d heard Stiles was palpable. The softness in his eyes watching Stiles rough up his pup without a care in the world tipped a glimpse of how much he cared for him. The rest was in the clear spike of his scent—joy and affection, laced with more than a thread of desire. Peter would know; he’d smelled it on him often enough. 

It only increased when their eyes met—and whether it was instinctive or a move to shift away from the loll of Ice’s tongue, Stiles tipped his head back, baring his throat. It was subtle; no one else would have noticed—but Chris reached down and covered that vulnerability with his hand. His thumb swiped over Stiles’ pulse, surely swiping away drool. There was nothing blatant, nothing he even believed either of them had intended, but it had had happened, and he hadn’t missed it. 

Peter spent the rest of the demonstration half distracted, half lost in thought. His intuition hadn’t been wrong; Chris had a problem. 

A problem, and a solution. With the scent of pine thick in his mouth, Peter couldn’t help but wonder just how much of this particular equation Chris had let himself see. 

++++++

Almost from the moment they’d met, the threat of losing Peter had followed Chris everywhere. He was always aware of it, an unseen current exerting pressure on his skin. That pressure slowed, sometimes, but it never died. 

The lack of security wasn’t any lack of faith in Peter—he’d never had faith in anything like he had for Peter and the dogs. It was only that he knew himself—not just his own imperfections but all the layers packed within them, and all that they were built on. Everything in his blood, everything he might have been, everything he’d seen—every one of those weights drove his fault lines deeper. He could trust Peter to never want to leave him, but he couldn’t trust himself not to drive him away. Even love had its limits—his mother had found hers. 

There was part of his mind, quiet and dark, that rose up with the wonder of what Peter’s would be. It was a mystery, like the clicking tumblers of an old safe, like a Rubik’s cube. There existed a combination of events that could crack open even Peter’s devotion, and he wondered at it sometimes like the call of the void on the edge of a cliff. What would it take? Too many hours away could combine with a glimpse of the darkness in him on a hunt, layered against the quiet of their house and a dash of alcohol and instability—there were moments it all seemed so possible and his curiosity burned, morbid and bright, difficult to look away from. 

When the wondering choked him, he had learned to go to Peter. Nothing could quiet the clamor under his skin like the smell of him, rich like wine, as cool and unmoving as stone. He had never quite placed it, that part, until he stood once on a hunt under the overhang of a cave and felt it gather against the roof of his mouth— wet and ancient rock, chilled in the heart of the earth, impassive and unforgiving and providing shelter all the same. It was so fitting, so _Peter_ at a better time it could have made him laugh.

Tired and alone, he had crouched and pressed his palm to the stone, watched the pale form of the wolf on his wedding ring scamper through the trees and felt grounded not to the formations beneath his feet but to the closest thing to a constant he had ever known. 

The world hadn’t felt so precarious, then, but every moment that it did remained forever sharp in his mind, little glimpses of the puzzle of what Peter could or couldn’t take that he never wanted to solve. 

There had been so many possible breaking points—telling Peter he could never trust himself enough to be a father, moving Peter out of a pack house surrounded by family to isolation in the woods with no one but Chris for company, no one but the old dogs when he was working. Working through going off his suppressants, facing arguments about whether or not Peter should travel with him. They had weathered so much. The concept of adding to that strain couldn’t help but feel to Chris like stacking bricks on thin ice—if he didn’t have to, why would he want to? 

He didn’t _have_ to tell Peter how he felt about Stiles. It would only become an imperative if he cheated, and that was something Chris wasn’t about to do. No matter the temptation, he never would—the much harder voice to ignore was the niggling reminder that Peter had been raised by two alphas and an omega. Arrangements like that were more common in packs—Chris had heard it in much more offensive terms from his father years before, but for Peter it was part of his life, part of his home. To hear him talk about it, it sounded natural. 

From that angle, the thought of broaching the subject didn’t sound so impossible. 

_I think I might have feelings for Stiles._

_I’m responding to Stiles. I think it might mean something._

_We should take Stiles out to dinner. You should get to know him._

Even the last one felt too much, if only because he knew just what he’d want from Peter getting to know him. That increased the pressure, even if Peter wasn’t aware. It would change how Chris acted, and Peter would notice, and it would all come out anyway. 

_Sometimes I think about what it would be like. Living here with you, and Stiles. I’ve had dreams about it. Waking up with both of you. Coming outside in the morning to find Stiles with Nod on the back porch, drinking coffee. The sound and smell of you making breakfast. It’s all so real, until I wake up and feel like an asshole._

He couldn’t bring himself to say any of it, not even with Peter’s background, not even knowing there was a chance he might be well received. There was a chance he wouldn’t, and how could it be worth that risk? He wasn’t losing Stiles; the kid had said himself Chris was one of his best friends, now. He wasn’t going anywhere. 

How could he risk losing Peter for the sake of something he didn’t need? He wasn’t unhappy. He wasn’t any less in love with Peter than he had been the day he knew he wanted to court him properly. 

In his office in midst of 3 AM quiet, Chris closed the file he was working on about a new acclimation program for the nightshade fossa they’d be taking on. The decision hadn’t been made just yet, technically, but he knew Stiles. Isaac would be driving to West Virginia to pick her up that weekend; he was sure of it. 

It was time for bed. Peter had gone hours ago. He hadn’t come to say goodnight, but it wasn’t out of pettiness—he’d just expected Chris sooner than this. Their schedules matched better, now. It wasn’t often they didn’t go to bed together, or close to it. He needed to get up, take the dogs out, shower off the park and get in bed. 

He opened Chrome, then YouTube. The most recent video Stiles had posted was from last week. Chris skipped the intro, letting go of his drag of the curser when Stiles was there and smiling, leaned forward to accommodate the weight of the carrion bird on his back. 

“Hey guys! So, for everyone who might be starting here—honestly I don’t recommend it because this one’s going to be a bit of a train wreck. I’d point you back to the beginning or at least to a few weeks ago when we covered the rescue of our new royal tern—I’ll put both those links in the description—I know, I know, c’mon, man, I’m getting to you—”

Stiles could fake no irritation for Nod, even in his interruption. The press of the scaly, sagging white skin of his naked head against Stiles’ cheek didn’t bother him in the slightest, no more than the gentle nibble of his wickedly sharp curved beak at the underside of Stiles’ jaw. 

“So, like I was saying, for those of you who are new, we start every video with an update about Nod, here. If you don’t recognize him based on that white head and those beautiful red eyes—” There, on a point that so many people would have described with horror, Stiles’ voice hit a tone of praise, near musical. “—he’s a sandman vulture. As you can see, contrary to common myth, that doesn’t make him dangerous to touch—he’s even helped me sleep several times, and I wasn’t ever freaked out that I might wake up missing organs. They can put anything to sleep if they want to, and wild vultures would almost exclusively use that to feed, but they only do it on prey already so incapacitated they would never survive. From their perspective, it allows them to take a meal quicker and easier without risk of injury, but we can look at it as mercy. It’s not evil; it’s just nature.” 

He’d said it so many times, Chris had _heard_ him say variations of it more than he could count, and still Stiles never sounded bored. Nod was his first love, the way the hounds had been his. Educating people about him was second nature, as easy as breathing. 

Reaching back, Stiles scritched into the feathers on Nod’s chest, craning his neck to watch as he started to spread his wing in delight, exposing more space for petting. 

“As you can see, he’s completely tame. Due to a series of unfortunate events he ended up homeless as a young chick after a raid on an illegal potions operation. My dad’s in law enforcement, and he was part of the task force. They didn’t have connections at the time with any bird specific rehab facilities in our area; he probably would have died, and dad couldn’t bear that, so he brought him home. I was 8, and I needed a project, and the rest is history. Right, brat?” 

The coo and click Nod made sounded deceptively beautiful, unmatched to the rough crags of his face. With his beak open, he banged his face against Stiles’ again, pressing it hard into his cheek. 

“Besides being my personal favorite, he’s the reason the park even exists. If I hadn’t wanted to build a place where he could really stretch his wings, none of this would have happened, so he gets top billing, every time. Clearly, he’s having a blast today—I’ve had him out on an adventure making my rounds of the park with me this morning, but he’s got some arthritis in his wings and ankles that’s starting to worry me so we don’t go as far as we used to. Other than that, he’s doing just fine. Once I get him out of the way, I’ll give you a first look at the letterbox caimen hatchlings—I know everyone’s super excited and I am, too, but this is another reminder not to get too attached. That’s a reminder for me and you—we usually only take non-releasable magical wildlife mostly for my sanity and because they need a good place to go, too, but we made an exception to breed these guys. They’re critically endangered in the wild, so anything we can do to help undo the damage that’s been done by the divination trade is an obligation we can’t pass up. When I show you the hatchlings, their markings won’t be readable just yet—the script comes in as they grow; by the time they’re around 6 months they’ll have their final pattern of runes. I’ll give and update then, too, if they’re still with us—Chris and I have a bet at least one of them’s going to be a death omen—”

Though the smile when Stiles had said his name was almost worth catching, the face he’d paused on was even better. The softness in his smile and the brightness of his eyes hadn’t been there a moment before. 

The rumble of a growl built in his own chest, and died before he let it out. He’d suppressed his alpha instincts for the entire first stretch of his life. Surely he could find a way to do it selectively, now, when he needed to. He could swallow this thing down. 

Chris’ finger hovered over the mouse, unmoving, the minutes stretching, Stiles’ smile that had been all for him undimmed, and unchanged. 

++++++

The bell on the door banged hard into the glass, a sharp clatter that had Lava shrieking. Stiles swore under his breath—and almost as quickly, wished fervently the person at door would be his dad. At the very least, not a kid. He didn’t usually greet visitors with obscenities—then again, he also didn’t usually greet them with half his body in a birdcage, trying his best to settle a stressed long tailed widowbird. 

“Just a second! I was just getting his bed settled—” Stiles craned his neck to look back, and had a second’s glance of possibly the most gorgeous man he’d ever seen. The silvering scruff of his beard was mouthwatering, his exposed arms where his sleeves rolled up were colored with tattoos on the insides, too far to see as more than an accent to his form. His shirt was open at the top, his jeans tight. His alpha scent wasn’t overwhelming, but even at a distance Stiles could catch a hint of it—earthy, laced with pine. He looked like a fucking dream. 

Lava smacked solidly into Stiles’ face, jamming musty feathers into his mouth and blocking his vision. It felt like being hit by a brick wrapped in down. 

Spitting, Stiles drew back. Turning to close the door, it was easy enough to wipe his face against his shoulder like a cat, his mouth dragging on the fabric of his shirt. Little feathers fluttered down, swirling, drawn back to his shirt by static, and sticking. He wasn’t vain, but it wasn’t how he’d have chosen to meet the most beautiful man he was likely to ever encounter, doing this job. One at least passingly interested in his work, no less. 

“Hey, sorry about that; Lava gets weird about sudden noises—we think it was the mage that had him before he was surrendered, probably lots of—“ The gesture he mimed could have been explosions or confetti or an unusual interpretive dance—behind the slight crook of an eyebrow, the man in the foyer didn’t seem fazed. “Sorry. Hi, welcome to Things With Feathers where not everyone actually has feathers and if you’re a donor who hasn’t visited before just know we definitely aren’t always this disorganized—you came at a weird time; we’ve got painting that needs to be done and we weren’t expecting any big tours for the next few days so the gift shop’s gonna be a little crowded while the paint fumes—”

Behind him, the rattle and clunk of Lava colliding with the top of his cage set Ecclesiastes off. In the corner of his eyes, Stiles could see his cheeks flooding a rich, annoyed purple as his wings flared.

“Why are you alive?” Ecclesiastes said it with his beak through the bars, feathers fluffed in haughty irritation. With his clear and sharp little voice, the words were all the more cutting—Stiles felt lucky again that he wasn’t about to lead a kid’s tour.

The stranger’s laughter lit his face more than Stiles would have imagined it could— it was a good look for him. Rather than let himself look too long, Stiles turned back to his birds, finger pointing sharp at Ecclesiastes. 

“You’re such a dick; stop. He’s scared. Play with your toys.”

Birds who couldn’t talk could say a wealth with their eyes, and their body—Stiles had always believed that, growing up with Nod. A sorcerer’s myna like Ecclesiastes was more than capable of both. The decision not to say it out loud didn’t lessen the level of _fuck you_ in his eyes, or the shrewd tilt of his head. If he’d been close enough to reach, no doubt Stiles would have been nipped for daring to give a reprimand.

“I mean it. I’ll take your mirror, you little shit,” Stiles said. It was was under his breath, and still from the renewed huff of laughter behind him he knew he’d been heard. “I’m sorry about him; sorcerer’s myna that belonged to an actual sorcerer—I mean he was a real piece of work, more of a mad scientist. Real doomsday cult shit, too—anyway, he was seized and the local zoo tried to take him cause they’re usually prized for educational programs but as you can see, this one—”

“I don’t like you,” Ecclesiastes interrupted. The words were well articulated, his focus on Stiles clear. Stiles just talked over him. He was used to it. 

“—is kind of an ass and isn’t really appropriate. We thought at first he was just never given a better vocabulary, but we’ve taught him a few things now and he uses them when he wants. I’m sure a lot of it’s habit, but I’m absolutely convinced the rest is just him. We let him talk to the older kids and they get a kick out of him, but he goes up when the little ones are here unless he’s really in a good mood.”

“And—Lava?” 

“His full name is The Floor Is Lava—the kids from Oatbrook Elementary named him, cause of the jumping. Most widowbirds do it to show off, and he’ll do that, too, but he also does it when he’s scared, pissed off—he’s a multi-use jumper.”

Rather than be put off by his rambling, the more he talked the easier the atmosphere between them seemed. It had been awkward for a minute—or at least, Stiles had felt awkward, but that hadn’t lasted. He was still covered in feathers, he was sure, but his heart wasn’t hammering. It wasn’t hard to swallow, and laugh, and let the oddness that had come first roll off his back. 

“He’s beautiful.”

“He’s a neurotic mess, and I thought he could stay in that temporary cage but he can’t. He’ll hurt himself if he keeps that up—but he’ll be okay for a bit,” Stiles said. Behind him, the creak and click of feet on bars told him someone was pacing. “Did you come for a tour?”

“Maybe. I came about the job—are you still hiring someone willing to work with large magical predators?”

“Seriously? Oh God are we ever—I mean it’s not a bad job, don’t get me wrong, but it’s just part time and we’ve got such a variety that so many people are freaked out by one of them even if they aren’t worried about the others—what animals are you afraid of?” He said it all too fast, too eager. His dad had warned him never to sound desperate for help, and here he was all but pleading—still, this guy didn’t seem like an abuser. He didn’t look afraid to get his hands dirty, either. 

“None of them, but I’d rather not work with anything that uses storm magic, if I can.”

“Not a problem; it’s just the thunderbirds and the spring zappers and they like Kira best anyway. What kind of experience do you have?”

The stranger stepped closer, pulling his phone from his pocket. Up close, Stiles could see that all the tattoos on his left arm were functional—a working compass, elevation listed below it in a flowing script reminiscent of old maps. A clock face, intricately bordered, tiny scythe of a second hand jolting around the center in stops and starts. In a patch near the bend of his elbow, an old mill in a clearing by a stream was surrounded by clear skies, and fresh green. He’d have been willing to bet that the week before, it’d have shown the patter of rain. Whoever his tattoo artist was, their spellwork was exquisite. 

“I’ve hunted and trapped supernatural wildlife for most of my life. I’ve raised my own wolfsbane borzoi—these three are still active workers, so I could easily bring them in for a demonstration. I know you do a lot of education work.”

In the picture, three enormous dogs had fallen into a loose triangle formation—a pale cream female at the head, her legs spattered with mud. The black and brindle dogs that flanked her had their eyes on the same prize, just as focused—the black was lowering his head. The unusual slope of his muzzle could have made him look silly, if the flash of silver in his eyes hadn’t looked so serious. They could have been a textbook picture of a hunt.

“Oh, wow; that’s—they’re gorgeous. You won’t have any trouble with ours, if you’re used to them. They make some of the volunteers nervous. We just have the two, but they were used by hunters who weren’t—”

“One was my sister’s. She’s a piece of shit,” he said it flat, and easy. If not for sudden click as he locked his phone, Stiles could have almost believed it didn’t hurt. “Chris Argent. I should have said that first.”

Stiles held out his hand at just the right moment for the two of them to meet. He could feel the calluses, proof of work. He could feel the heat of him, the jolt in his own stomach at the size difference in his alpha hands. The leap of his heart into his throat couldn’t be explained by anything. “Stiles Stilinski—and look, I already want to hire you, believe me, but I can tell you right now we can’t afford you. You don’t just have years of experience; you could teach the staff lessons.”

Deliberately, he tried not to imagine what that might be like. There would be no affording him, not a hunter famous not just for what he’d tracked but what he’d done out of the field. It was a bit before Stiles’ time, but the word was his testimony at his father’s trial had helped link more of his victims, and sway the jury. His sister had hated him for it. 

After the trial, he’d retreated from the limelight to do his own work, but he’d made such a name for himself as a hunter that Stiles had heard of him long before he started his YouTube channel years ago. Still, he’d never seen him, not that he could remember at least—he didn’t promote himself like that. It was all word of mouth and work on the road; he didn’t have a facility. He didn’t have a following. 

Chris pocketed his phone, his hand staying with it. “You can afford me. I’m not asking anything you wouldn’t pay a kid in college, and I don’t expect to get out of the hard work—hell, if you weren’t hiring I’d volunteer. Just let me come in and give you a hand.”

Almost every time, if something looked too good to be true, it probably was. 

Stiles rubbed his palm across his shirt, scrubbing off feathers, and giving himself a minute to think. His mouth opened before he could finish. “Okay but really, why are you here? You can’t possibly have a shortage of jobs; I could go online right now and find 50 people in this state saying they have a wildlife problem—”

“I know,” Chris said. “It’s not about the money—why am I here, honestly?” The huff of his laugh could have been humor, or stress. It was hard to be sure. “I’m trying to save my marriage before it really needs saving. I need a job where I’m not on the road half the week; I need less hours and I need to come home at the end of the day—and come home in a better mood. I think working here could keep me busy enough not to go stir crazy, and get me back to Peter more often than I make it right now.”

“He hates the travelling, huh?” The drop in his stomach that had come with the word _marriage_ was stupid, ridiculous. They’d just met. He couldn’t have any expectations—and besides, he was hardly a catch. Most alphas didn’t want an omega who barely looked like an omega, much less acted like one. Chris’ husband probably didn’t spend all his spare time wrestling wild animals. 

“He’s a werewolf from a pack of fifteen. Most of them lived at the pack house; going from that to living with me when I’m not even there half the time—I’m surprised he’s stood it as long as he has.” 

He wasn’t a werewolf, but Stiles could imagine. The drop from three people down to two leaving just him and his dad in the house had been a hard enough shift to swallow. 

“I’m not paying you like a college kid; you deserve more than that—but I can’t pay you what you deserve, so why don’t we meet somewhere in the middle? I can feel a little guilty, you can—”

“Not give a single rat’s ass; I just want the work.” 

“I want to know,” Ecclesiastes said. He’d walked along his perch until he faced Chris more than Lava, his head tilting. It would have been easy for Stiles to take over, to answer—he was used to talking back to the birds while he worked. 

Instead, he said nothing, and gave Chris time to step forward. 

“You want to know, huh?” His voice changed, for the bird. He hadn’t been rough before, but it was a little easier then, a little lighter. “You’re a pretty boy. What do you want to know?”

“I want to _know_.” Ecclesiastes snatched his wooden iguana toy, dragging it sharp and sudden along the front of his cage. The rungs rang out like a xylophone. “I don’t like you.”

“You don’t even know me yet. Why don’t you give me a chance first?” 

It was for the bird, only for the bird. There wasn’t any need for Stiles stomach to turn over—and still he felt it, sharp and quick. It was too goddamn close to his heat; that had to be it. 

Stiles cleared his throat. “Yeah, he’ll insult you all day if you let him. Why don’t I give you a tour?”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In my original plan for this chapter, it ended with Stiles and Peter meeting- and that scene is still coming, but I felt like the chapter ended much better here. 
> 
> There's some jumping around in time here- I feel like it makes sense, but it's also nearly 6 AM and I've been working on this in bits and pieces for like 3 months so *shrug* we'll seeeeee lmao 
> 
> (Real talk though, this chapter gives a glimpse of some of the issues Peter and Chris have had- but I guess my like, warning? disclaimer? comfort warning? is that they've worked through all of those things. Their relationship is healthy- but even healthy relationships take work. Here's some of the work they've put in. Plenty more isn't pictured but...these bits are relevant. I hope you all enjoy them- especially Tri <3 Ily and I promise this has an even happier ending.)

Chris’ wedding ring was a tattoo, a thick band around his finger edged in black. The wide middle showed an infinite forest, black pines against a navy sky, dotted here and there with a spattering of stars, but they paled alongside the white of the wolf that ran through the trees. His lope seemed endless and constant—Stiles had thought it a set pattern, until they were sitting side by side shucking corn for the hearth pheasants. 

The wolf had gone still on the top of Chris’ finger, lying down—it was the largest opening between the trees, a spot designed to fit him. Stiles had never noticed it before, and he couldn’t help but reach out to touch, even if he shouldn’t. 

He stopped himself just before making contact, close enough to feel the heat of Chris’ hand before he pulled back, and took up his corn again. “Sorry, I just; he’s still, I’ve never seen him still. I thought it was a set spell, one of those cycles, you know, like a repeating loop.”

“Peter’s asleep,” Chris said. The fond edges to Peter’s name pressed against Stiles chest like a blunt knife. “The wolf is tied to him. When it’s running, he’s awake; when it lays down, he’s asleep. If it ever howls, that means something’s very wrong.” 

“Has it ever howled? Shit, I’m sorry; I shouldn’t ask—”

“You can ask, Stiles. You know that.” Six months they’d worked together, and sometimes he felt like he’d known Chris all his life. It always jarred him to realize Chris might feel the same. The inexplicable rightness he felt, the connection that seemed near palpable sometimes between them, all of it might not be one-sided. If he was honest with himself, he knew it wasn’t, but that was a dangerous thought.

It was dangerous to hope. Scott said it all the time; his dad had reminded him just last week. Some werewolves took more than one mate, sure, but Chris wasn’t a werewolf, and Peter might not be the sharing type. Stiles had never met him. Everything Stiles knew about him came filtered through the lens of someone who loved him enough to give up a job that had defined him and make peanuts at an animal park, just to go home to him in time for dinner. 

Chris ripped the husk from the ear he held with deliberate force, a sharp snap of his wrist. “Twice. Scared the shit out of me both times. Whatever he’d tell you, Peter mostly wanted this thing for the romance—he liked the thought of me having that connection to him when I was on the road. It’s sweet, but I don’t need a reminder how important he is to me. I wanted a warning. He doesn’t worry enough. I’ve made enemies; my father made more. My biggest fear is that coming back to bite him; he’s innocent.”

“So are you,” Stiles said. He was careful with it, low and under his breath without looking up. He wanted Chris to hear it; he didn’t want to see him not believe it. “Was it something like that, those two times?”

“Yes, and no. The first time, my sister tried to set his pack’s house on fire. Everyone was fine, but his nephew let her in the door when she said she was family. Poor kid’s still scared of strangers.” 

“Jesus; I remember that! Dad worked the case.” It hadn’t been too long ago either—in the early days of the park, when it was tiny and he couldn’t afford any employees at all, so it was just him when Scott and Melissa and his dad couldn’t pitch in. He hadn’t expected help that day, and his dad hadn’t come to give it. Instead, he’d showed up in his cruiser, found Stiles tending to Nod, and pulled him into a hug so tight Stiles could taste the rise of his own worry. 

They went to Waffle House, and his dad told him about Kate Argent, and a traumatized little boy who’d been unable to keep his claws from pricking his mother’s shirt. He’d told him, too, about the hunting dog she’d had with her, wild and dangerous enough that she’d bit two deputies in catching her. She was out of her head, abused and crazy.

Stiles named her Seven of Nine, slipped a better muzzle onto her, and brought her home. 

“Of course I’m not the least bit sorry about the way things turned out, but if she’d actually set the fire they might could hold her for longer. I’m ready for the shit she’ll pull when she gets out.” 

“Shit. You think she’ll come after Peter again?”

“I think if she does, she’ll find me at home, and I’m not a cop. I don’t have to make every effort to bring her in peacefully if I feel like my family’s in danger.”

“Yeah, I don’t blame you. When I picked up Seven, she was crazy.” Stiles eyes flicked to meet Chris’, up from his own fingers yanking silks off freshly exposed corn. “Who the hell does that to a dog?”

“My father,” Chris said. Smooth and easy, like he always was talking about Gerard Argent. Stiles wondered how much distance that took—or how much indifference. How he’d gotten from hatred to indifference had to have been a hell of a road, and even so, Stiles couldn’t imagine that the hatred wasn’t still there, bottled under the surface with the thick veneer of Chris’ control. “Of the two of us, I know he considers me the failure. Raised in the same house, but the brainwashing only took on one of us.”

“You’re stronger than he realized.”

“Maybe. Maybe I’m just stubborn and I got lucky.” He stood to finish his last ear of corn, and Stiles didn’t ask him anything more.

They went together to take the corn even though it didn’t require two people. It was finally starting to feel like fall, and it was nice to stand in the October sun and hear the pheasants rustle their way to them through the leaves, nicer still to hear Hephaestus coo and cluck at Chris like he was one of his hens. 

“He loves you so much.” Stiles couldn’t help but say it; it was too plain. He’d laid the first ears down for Molly and Wisp to explore, but Hephaestus was still clucking to Chris, head tilted up, waiting half for his scratches and half for Chris to lay down his corn. If he could decide which stash was best, he’d know which to encourage the hens to eat. 

Chris knelt down and laid three ears gently onto cleared ground, gravel beds Stiles had prepared when he first built this outdoor enclosure. A fire pit for his little fire starters—enrichment, and safety. If they could scratch the itch to burn their food here, they’d be much less likely to start a fire. 

“I love him, too,” Chris murmured. His knuckles skimmed light down the feathers on Hephaestus’ neck, petting with such gentle pressure it barely ruffled them. “He’s a good boy—you take such good care of your girls, don’t you? I know you do.” 

Hephaestus tilted into the petting, his blind eye pressed into the cup of Chris’ palm. There was such trust in him, for Chris. When he’d first come to the sanctuary, the victim of a cat attack, he’d bolted at every sound. He never cooked his own meals—Stiles could remember grilling grasshoppers and bell pepper for him on his dad’s back patio, Hephaestus wrapped in his shirt to try and settle him. Half his feathers had been missing, plucked out from nerves. 

With a last scratch under his beak, Chris pointed toward the corn with his knuckles. “Go on. They’ll start without you.” 

The process of deciding the best ear wasn’t immediate—he circled and bobbed, tasted a raw kernel here and there. The soft scuttles and coos of Molly and Wisp in their circling and waiting soothed a tightness in Stiles’ shoulders he hadn’t realized he still held. Being with the animals always reset his anxiety, if it was the sort of day when he had it, stripping it down until he could only feel its presence like a shadow. 

The soft puff and crackle of Hephaestus breathing fire over the corn soon filled the silence. Chris hadn’t stood, his hand still ready to meet the proud little thing when he stopped and strutted over, his clucks higher and faster. If he could, he’d be chattering away—it didn’t matter, really, that he couldn’t. The tiny quirk to the corner of Chris’ mouth couldn’t have been more genuine. 

“Yeah, little man,” Chris said. “You did good. That was the best one; I’d have picked it first, too.” 

There was such softness in him, a touch of Louisiana on the words that Stiles had only heard come out for the animals—except once, when Peter had called. He’d answered the phone and it was right there, curling his tongue like smoke. 

_Hey, baby; I know I’m late. We just got caught up. No, it’s fine. I’m with Stiles. I love you, too._

The tightness it drew into Stiles’ chest wasn’t anxiety, but a deeper pressure, drawing in and in, a black hole between his ribs. 

++++++

To avoid the first major fight of their marriage, Peter ran into the woods. Arguably, it wasn’t the best tactic, and it wasn’t even typical—more often than not, his problem in arguments was being too quick with his words rather than speechless. He hadn’t exactly been speechless then, either, but the sudden rawness of the wound had shaken him, and all he wanted was earth under his feet. 

He meant to run, but he hadn’t meant to run quite so far—for the wolf, it was easy. A wild wolf could run 30 miles in a day under the right circumstances, and he was something more than that. He didn’t have to stop, and he didn’t have to slow. He could run through unfamiliar woods that had only just begun to carry his scent in the closest spaces to the house, beyond and through woods he’d never crossed, skirting around neighborhoods and crossing cracked concrete behind two gas stations until the woods started to smell familiar again. 

By the time he reached the nemeton, he was panting with exertion, and there was a tremor in his legs. He laid down in a curve at its base, the slight chill of shade in late autumn welcome for how overheated he felt. There was no water unless he wanted to find the creek; all he wanted was to lay down, relax into the wolf and not allow himself to think too hard. 

His grandmother had warned him about marrying a human. If he had gone to her, she would have given him no sympathy—only that knowing look in her eyes that was all wolf, a quiet judgement, absolute but without malice. He hadn’t listened any better than Talia had. They both married men; they would both reap the consequences. What hers would be or if she’d already begun to face them he couldn’t be sure, but he’d thought he’d known the biggest differences between Chris’ behavior and his already. 

He’d known Chris had taken suppressants; of course he had. They’d been together long enough already he’d have come into rut several times without them. They’d even talked about it, briefly, but Peter had always assumed it was a barrier that would drop when they were mated properly—the alternative was, for a wolf, incomprehensible. 

Growing up, the cycles of older family members had always been a part of his life, as regular as the seasons—he and Talia and Felix had loved that their mother’s heat triggered most years in the fall just in time for the apple carnival to the north in Tennessee. All three of their parents would spend a week at the cabin; they would spend a week with their grandparents, and the weekend at the carnival. Expected tradition, made special by the unusual combination of rarity and repetition. Even as a teenager when he had been obligated to point out that there wasn’t really much there to do and nothing they hadn’t already done, and they should go to Atlanta instead, a quiet part of him had been relieved to be ignored. 

There was something settling about standing where he had every fall since he could remember, licking the too sweet sugar of a candy apple and watching the living surface of a pond where carp reached up and up with their searching mouths, too often suspecting the falling leaves to be thrown popcorn. The yellow birch leaves showed up best as they swirled under the surface, winking like a last flash of trapped sunlight as they sank down into the muddy water. 

As a beta, he’d never known if he would have a form of that tradition for himself, forming memories not of a child on vacation but a bonded mate, fueling that bond. After he met Chris, he was sure he would—he hadn’t doubted it. If he’d been less sure, Chris’ answer might not have cut so deep. 

_Have you thought about where you’d like to go this winter?_

_Unless something big comes up, I’d planned to work close to home—_

_Not work; when it’s time for your rut. From what I’ve read it takes a few months to come off suppressants, so your first cycle probably won’t hit until winter. Of course, I know it’s just us and we could stay here, but at least this first time—I know it’d be a long way to go for just a week, but I had thought about going back to Idaho—_

_Don’t worry about it; I’m still taking the suppressants._

In retrospect, with the wolf’s focus on scent and mood even in recollections, it was clear that Chris hadn’t meant it to cut him. There had been no viciousness, no hesitation or preparation, only automatic recitation, blunt honesty that had soured with confusion only at the look on Peter’s face. 

He hadn’t meant for it to hurt, because he hadn’t thought of sharing that part of himself with Peter at all—and honestly, Peter for the life of him couldn’t have said in those hours of initial shock which thought would have felt worse. 

Chris had never told him afterward who led him to the nemeton, or if anyone did. As a newlywed so recently deeply stung, it had helped to think that Chris had found him himself, that their bond was strong enough for that. Years after, he never asked, because it didn’t matter. Whether he’d found Peter because he tracked him down or because he cared enough to take himself before Peter’s family, admit his fault, and beg for their help was irrelevant. 

He found Peter because Peter was his, and worth the searching, whatever form that searching had taken. The intent and the end, those together were all that mattered. 

He would remember for the rest of his life the relief on Chris’ scent when he saw Peter at the base of the tree, the heaviness that had pressed him down to a crouch, just outside of reach—as if the ring where the roots began to rise above the ground marked a line he couldn’t cross. It had dragged on his voice, too, pulling on his accent in a way that under better circumstances could have made Peter’s skin burn. 

_Baby, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry; come here. We need to talk._

It was hard to stay mad, with Chris looking at him like that—nearly impossible for the wolf, who wanted nothing more than to go to his mate, but it wasn’t much easier once he’d turned back, either. 

Still, the sharpness of it all had still throbbed enough in his chest that he’d stayed put, and sat naked on the ground to work out with his husband just how much they’d misunderstood each other. 

_You aren’t an omega. I never thought you would care._

_Just because I can’t get pregnant doesn’t mean I don’t want to be chosen by my mate._

_I choose you all the time; I married you—_

_It’s not the same thing._

There was so much, then, that neither one of them had realized—Peter lived with the wolf; he had a frame of reference for a level to his mind that wasn’t always consciously under his control. With everything his father had been, an aspect to his mind that he couldn’t control had only ever sounded like hell to Chris. 

Letting that part of himself rise to the surface for Peter’s sake had been one of the greatest acts of love he could have offered—striving to make him feel safe enough to embrace every inch of it at his own pace was Peter’s. Patience was a virtue he possessed, but not one he enjoyed. Waiting scraped along his skin like teeth. 

They had fucked that evening right there at the nemeton, fueled not only by the drive of all young lovers to make up, but Chris’ need to show Peter just how much he desired him. It was rougher and wilder than Chris had ever been with him, and still it was nothing like the pure intensity they’d find when Chris did go off his suppressants, and learn that he could allow himself the urges of an alpha without veering into violence. 

The bark of the nemeton had scratched Peter’s back; he’d dug his nails into Chris’ skin just as fiercely. He believed in the old gods, but Peter had never been one for prayer, particularly. He carried his own weight, and bore his own consequences. In the moment, though, he hadn’t been able to help himself—it was too electric, all but a ritual already. He’d reached back with his left hand and pierced the bark with his claws, driving Chris’ blood under his nails into the body of the tree, feeling his own skin split at the tips of his fingers from the pressure. A sacrifice, however small, offered up with the pounding of his heart and the fierce and feral honesty in the cry that had slipped from his throat as Chris thrust in hard, and bit down against his shoulder. 

_Let me have him like this for the rest of my life, completely mine and unafraid, and I will never ask you for anything else._

For a long time, he’d been sure that prayer had been answered. 

Standing in their kitchen on his third week in a row of cooking only for himself with Chris’ voice coming through a tinny connection on the other end of the line, the thought occurred to him that maybe it hadn’t. What was a ritual to the unbeliever, after all, but throwing a penny into a well? Nothing worked without faith—and he had faith in Chris, but not the divine. Perhaps he’d needed both. Without one, it could all fall apart. 

“I know I said I’d be home by the end of the month, but this won’t wrap up by then. The way the hunt’s going, I’ll have to stay at least until the larvae hatch—”

“The only commission I have that won’t wait I can work on as a priority. If I put everything else on hold, I can be up there by the time—”

“No, it’s fine; I’ve got too much to do. I got Deaton to call in a shot for me; I’m sitting this one out,” Chris said. Across the line, Peter could feel the heaviness, like lead. “Sweetheart, I’m sorry; I know after last year I said it wouldn’t happen again, but it’s just bad timing. When I get home—”

“Don’t,” Peter’s snap was vicious and sharp, nothing like the howl he could feel building in his chest. When he hung up he could go to the woods, let himself and the wolf settle into equilibrium, and let it out. “Don’t bother. I don’t need you to bring me flowers and take me out to dinner.”

“That’s not what I was going to say. I know this is a big deal for you—”

“And I know it isn’t for you!” He hadn’t meant to yell quite so loud. It rang out sharp and hard, echoing—the click of Fenrir’s nails on the tile came quick with anxiety. His nose when he pressed it up under Peter’s shirt was cold. Through and into the living room, he could see Belexes sleeping still by Chris’ end of the couch, deaf and oblivious. 

Somehow, that image hurt more than the first swell of disappointment at Chris’ rejection had. 

Peter sniffed, and hated that Chris heard it. It should have been easier to hide tears than that, alone and unseen. 

“Peter—”

“It’s the truth. This has never been important to you, not like it is to me. You play along because it matters to me, but you still don’t get it, do you? Having a mate isn’t the same thing as a wedding vow you take once; you renew it every season because you _want_ to, because it’s a priority and I am never going to be that for you—you should have told me that and saved us both the disappointment.” 

“That’s not fair. You know how much you mean to me—you and me, that is _everything_ , but you know how this job is. These people need help—”

“And I don’t need you, is that it? If I was an omega—”

“Don’t start that shit; this isn’t about—”

“It’s about the fact that you married me, knowing what I wanted, and I can’t even count on you to carve time out for me that you won’t compromise four fucking times a year. How the hell do you think that makes me feel?”

Chris’ silence only lasted seconds. Given long enough, he would have said something—maybe even the right thing. 

The pressure on Peter’s lungs felt too sharp to wait. “Forget it; it’s fine. Stay until April; I don’t fucking care. We’re fine here. Get the job done.” 

After he hung up, Peter threw the phone. It was childish, and stupid—pointless besides; all of Chris’ landline phones were tanks. That one was a cream cordless monstrosity from the 90’s—the plastic didn’t even shatter when it hit the island, but it did bounce apart, the battery door flying off when the force popped the battery out. 

The vibration was enough to wake Belexes. Like he did every time, he looked to the door for Chris, first, then the window for the 4Runner. When both showed him nothing, he pulled himself onto arthritic legs, and tip tapped his way on creaking knees across the hardwood and onto the kitchen tile. By then, Peter was already sitting with his back against the stove, Fenrir’s head in his lap. Belexes’ breath was terrible; his lick to Peter’s cheek more confused than comforting. 

Peter pressed his face into the ruff of fur around his neck, breathing in the musty smell of him. He was Chris’ oldest friend; he’d shared more of his life than Peter had. Usually, that didn’t make him feel insignificant.

Peter drew out his pain until his own joints ached, and the throb in his throat felt a low counterpoint, almost soothing. 

++++++

There was something about finding Peter asleep that had always punched Chris in the gut. Peter could hear a car up their drive from almost the minute they turned off the highway, but he didn’t react to the 4Runner’s engine anymore. He could sleep right through Chris coming into their room, everything from his scent to his footsteps far too familiar to set off any alarm. Anyone else, even Talia, and he’d have been up and making tea; Chris was the only one who had the luxury of finding him in bed. It hurt almost as much as it thrilled him; it made his cock start to thicken. Peter had never trusted anyone like he trusted Chris—even when he let him down. 

Chris hadn’t meant to start a fight when he called from Pennsylvania, but when did he ever? 11 years, and they had learned to be good to each other. They hadn’t started out so bad either, but in the beginning they’d had their rough places, sharp edges where each of their hands caught and bled before they could feel how to smooth it out. Overall, it was easier between them now than it had been when they were younger, but the last two or three years had carried a building thread of disquiet Chris could feel not always at the surface but deep, shifting and coiling most often when he was away, sometimes when he wasn’t. 

It was no wonder that it was starting to surface; he’d ignored it far too long. 

Still, even with his eyes turned away from the danger, he hadn’t meant to fight. He’d thought when he left he’d be back home before it came time for his winter rut, but the hunt had stretched, and he’d called for a shot and given it to himself without thinking twice about it. It was his biology, sure, but he didn’t care about rut the way Peter did. He had learned to enjoy it, immensely, far more than he ever would have thought possible, but for him, that was all it was—excellent sex and good company, a lack of control he never had at any other time, alternately exhilarating or still mildly terrifying depending on the moment. 

For Peter, it was about as close as he came to a religious rite. For a wolf, every mating season was an opportunity to rededicate yourself to the mate you’d chosen, a confirmation that you were choosing them, still, from the deepest core of your soul, the part half outside of your hands. Raw instinct, raw emotion. Peter thought he didn’t understand, but that wasn’t true. In the beginning it had been, but he understood it well enough, now. Peter’s wolf needed to be chosen, and all of him needed the connection. 

He needed it, and still Chris hadn’t learned his lesson. In the middle of a hunt, his own instincts surfaced, old and pressed deep. Never leave a job unfinished; never refuse a job you know you can handle once you’re aware of it. His father hadn’t been able to make a monster in his own image, but he hadn’t left him unscathed. 

Still, it was no excuse. He wasn’t beholden to his father, or even to his own damaged perceptions. 

He had promised himself to Peter.

The longer he stood watching, the harder Buddy’s tail beat against the bed. When it began to sweep wider, brushing the lump of Peter’s body under the blankets and threatening to wake him, Chris broke the tension. Stepping forward, he bent first to kiss the slope of the borzoi’s forehead, fingers curling around his collar in the same motion to tug him forward.

“C’mon, Bud. Down; I’m taking my spot back.” 

He whispered, and still he could see the slightest change in Peter’s breathing before the sound of Buddy jumping down. Before it could grow on its own, Chris chased that flicker of awareness by pressing close, the scratch of his beard rough against the nape of Peter’s neck as he scented him, barely catching on the collar of a t-shirt he knew without a good look was his, not Peter’s. He’d let his usual faint beard grow a little thicker, while he was away, not as careful about shaving with no Peter there to complain and huff and comment on the _just right_ amount of stubble. 

Awake and without time to miss him quite so desperately, Peter would have complained. Coming aware out of sleep, the sudden burst of pleasure and joy on Peter’s scent was unmistakable. A little inconvenience couldn’t affect his longing—the argument days ago hadn’t even altered it in the slightest. Whether Chris deserved it or not was another question, but he was almost certain that if he could have broken the laws of non-magical travel and brought himself back home the night Peter had hung up on him, the night the wolf on his ring had howled, if he’d woken him up then Peter would have still smelled exactly the same. 

Chris pressed closer, and scented him again. Breathing deep, he could take it all in—clear happiness, a touch of arousal, the sharp and artificial scent of lube. The rattle of Chris’ growl was utterly involuntary, deep seated. He could feel the force of it in his chest, pressing out and against Peter’s skin when he bit down against the bared stretch of his neck. 

“Were you bored, earlier?” Chris asked. He nuzzled into the collar of his own shirt at Peter’s neck, his own scent on it so faint there was no doubt he’d slept several nights in this one. 

“Hello to you, too.” Peter hummed, and stretched. In the moonlight through the skylight, the white of his skin before his arms disappeared under the pillow was almost blue. The curve to his mouth was there only as a flicker before he hid it, pressing his face forward, too. “I didn’t expect you. Do you think I don’t get off when you aren’t here?”

“I know you do—”

“I don’t always send you a picture, either,” Peter said. Muffled and sleepy, there was no malice to it. 

Chris pulled the blankets down, far enough to expose him. The back of his boxers was wet with lube still leaking from him, like he’d been used hard. The twitch of Chris’ cock came so quick and firm his breath hitched. 

“You’re making me cold.” 

“Well, we can’t have that.” Chris slipped his legs under the warmth of the blankets, pressing close. The hand that cupped over Peter’s ass first traced the wet patch, then pressed, feeling out the twitching edges of his hole. “How was it, baby?” 

“Bigger than you,” Peter said. His head turned to look back at Chris properly for the first time since he’d gotten in bed. Even with a hint of sleepiness still clinging to his eyes, there was a smile in them for Chris, a glint of mischief, a sliver of something sharper that hurt like a staggered beat to his heart. “I was mad when I bought it. I told them I wanted a knot the size of a porn star.” 

“You little shit,” Chris said, his breath short. Yanking his boxers down, he could feel the heat at Peter’s hole, puffy and red under his thumb.

“I wanted a project.”

“You wanted to make a statement—did you get it in?” Based on the flutter against the pad of his thumb, Chris was almost certain he had. His body felt too used, twitchy in a way that was both tired and eager, overworked. That was harder to manage, for a werewolf. 

“The knot’s bigger than a baseball.”

“That’s not an answer.” Chris tugged at his hips, drawing him up to his knees. His ass was exposed, boxers still around his thighs. The wink of his hole when Chris squeezed at his hip was enough to make him growl. 

“I’m sore.” There was a whine in Peter’s voice, a whine after. A few years ago, it would have made Chris stop. 

He had learned better, since then. If Peter wanted to stop, he’d ask to stop. He was sore already from something that hadn’t meant anything; an ache that came from something that meant everything would be a relief for him, not a burden. 

He whimpered when he heard Chris’ belt, again and higher when the head of Chris’ cock nudged against his hole. Chris could feel the spasm of it already, the too easy give—and he could feel the animal in his chest respond to it like blood in the water. The urge to take was hot as iron in the back of his throat, a need to cling that curled his fingers hard at Peter’s hips. 

“No prep?”

“You don’t need it—you’ve already been bred.”

“Oh my God, are you jealous? It’s a dildo; it’s—” Whatever it was, he cut off on a moan when Chris pushed in hard. 

His heart hammered. Even disorientingly muffled by the shot that had tamed his hormones lower than they had been in years, he could still feel the press of the alpha just under his skin, fire hot and pushing, always pushing when he had Peter under him. The fit of his teeth over the curve of Peter’s neck felt as natural as breathing, as easy as the snap of his hips. 

And still, it wasn’t like rut. Even turned on and keyed up as high as he was, his mind was still working. 

“You wanted me to be jealous,” Chris said. The huffs of his breath came sharp and hot against Peter’s skin, heavy and involuntary, breaking up his kisses, the cut of his teeth. 

“I wanted you—fuck, Chris—” The sharp pitch of his whimper was as pretty as the stretch of his throat, the bend of his back when Chris pushed his shirt up. “Just _you_. Please. Please, please—”

“Yeah, baby; I’ve got you.” 

Even taking him hard wasn’t too much for Peter—it wasn’t too much for Chris anymore, either. They had learned how to take care of each other. Sometimes, for Peter, there was more to be said in bruises on his hips that didn’t last and the rumble of Chris’ growl against his spine as there could have been in words on a long distance phone call. If he needed to be chosen, Chris would choose him. There’d never been another choice, no one he’d ever wanted the way he wanted Peter. From the beginning, he’d wanted Peter so much it scared him. 

Peter wasn’t scared of much of anything. 

“Fuck, you feel—” Whatever it was, too much or not enough, Peter couldn’t get it out. He shook his head instead, arching back hard until Chris lifted him up, pressed tight against his chest. “Yes. Deeper; I want you to knot me.”

The bite that had been in his retorts when he’d been yelling over the line wasn’t there, but it didn’t have to be to cut deep and stick. Chris could feel the serrated edge of it regardless, like a thin blade nicking at his ribs. “You know I can’t,” he said. 

“Try.”

“You know—”

“Make me feel like you’re going to,” Peter said, breathless. One hand braced himself against the headboard, the other reached back to wrap around Chris’ neck. The prick of his claws only made Chris’ hips snap harder. “Make me take it.” 

“I wish I could. You don’t know how much I want to, to be tied to you, know you’re right here and safe, make you come on my cock and forget—”

A dildo? Not really, no. That didn’t matter. He might growl and put on a show, but he’d bought Peter a few himself over the years. It wasn’t jealousy that burned at him—at least, not jealousy like that. If he was jealous of anything, it was what he had, and kept risking. A version of himself, somewhere, who didn’t take Peter for granted. 

If he forgot anything, let it be that Chris hadn’t been here. If he made Peter come hard enough, and held him tight enough when it was over, it might not settle in his mind that he deserved for Chris to be a better man. 

“Fucking take it—” Chris growled against the shell of his ear, vicious but for the quiver in his voice they mutually chose to ignore. Peter’s turning away was in his cry as he came, undimmed by concern, the clench of his body hot and eager around the base of Chris’ cock. Even after his orgasm slowed, Peter’s body was pulling at him. It had learned to. “I want you still while I breed you; I don’t care if it’s too much for you to take. You can take it for me, can’t you? You’re so fucking good for me, Peter, _Christ_ —”

“Yes, _please_ —” The pain in Peter’s whimper as Chris spilled into him would have been different, with a knot forcing him open. Different, and far easier to bear than the way he pressed back, breath catching in his chest while his body waited to have its hand forced by pressure Chris couldn’t give. Without it, their anticipation stretched until it grew too thin to bear up against the silence, cracking and sliding down like the collapse of an eggshell. 

Chris was going soft. No matter how Peter’s hole fluttered around him, he couldn’t be held. 

While their breathing evened in the dark, Chris rolled over onto his back to take Peter’s weight. The blankets tangled around their legs, leaving Peter’s ass exposed. He was a mess, wet and sticky, his hole swollen and twitching when Chris rubbed at it. He could never help himself; he couldn’t stop touching, pressing, listening to the catch in Peter’s breath and getting drunk on the scent of his pleasure. 

To make his fingers stop teasing, he drew his thigh up between Peter’s legs, letting him rest closer, hitched up a little higher against his chest. His squeeze to Peter’s ass, then, was far gentler, a match to the trace of Peter’s fingers along the field of the tattoo on his right arm. In their immortalized Idaho, dying yellow grass waved hard to the left, parting to show a moose. The sharp planes of her geometric face turned toward Peter’s palm, exposing for a moment the strange and unnatural pattern of the mountains the artist had added into the hump on her back. A slice of the Idaho Rockies, projected onto a memory of the mother he and Peter had watched from the top of a hill. He’d still been close enough to the tail end of rut, then, that everything had been hazy and bright, Peter’s scent filling his lungs like a drug.

The sky had been so fucking blue, the water around the moose’s knees throwing it back up from its grey green depths like a warning. The world was too bright; the competing perfumes of summer and Peter too heady. He’d felt drunk on his biology, too aware of the pounding in his heart. 

Before he could stop himself, his mouth had been fitting over pink skin on Peter’s throat, raw because he’d bitten him open too many times in too few hours. 

_I want to take you again._

_Here, Christopher? With an audience?_

_There’s no one._

_The woods are full of eyes; you’re looking at two of them—_

_Then she can watch me breed you. I doubt she hasn’t seen it before._

Peter laughing until Chris bent him over would be held in that ink until the charm outlived his body, a decaying cycle of motion that drained without life to feed it like failing battery. It didn’t matter, really, that it was finite—for the two of them, for all intents and purposes, the moment had been made immortal. He could feel the rush of it whenever Peter touched her antlers—

What Peter felt, he couldn’t say, but he’d have been willing to bet it was something close to the same. The joy and reverence and history in Peter’s kiss felt too close to his own, a ringing kinship that buzzed between them at every point they touched. 

They had been so young, then. With miles and years and layers of skin pulled back, they could be that young for a moment again, any time they chose. 

There was nothing in all the world more important than that. He could forget, sometimes, but remembering took a charm with no true magic, far simpler than any Peter fashioned for his work—Peter’s fingers on his skin, stirring memory and love to the surface like the turning over of a pond. 

While it was fresh, before the memory could settle like silt and cloud his certainty, Chris tilted his forehead against Peter’s and murmured into the humid space between their lips, their tempo still uneven with the aftershocks of pleasure.

“What if I quit hunting? What if I got a job here, in town? Can you tell me this wouldn’t be any different? Having me to yourself all the time, that’ll really still be what you want once you’ve got it?” 

_Can you tell me we’ll still want each other like this when it isn’t a novelty, when we can have it anytime we want? Can you tell me you won’t get tired of that the way you’ll someday have had enough of this?_

_Tell me we won’t tear each other apart. Tell me you won’t let me tear you apart._

“Don’t offer me promises you can’t keep, Christopher.”

“I mean it,” Chris said.

“Then mean it when you aren’t naked. Think about it, and ask me again.”

“I have thought about it. Just because I’m asking now—”

“Think about it again. Ask me when you know you won’t resent me for it—or don’t ask at all; you know the answer already. You have me here. Make up your own damn mind.” Peter could be blunt, and Peter could be mean, but they didn’t always have to intersect. There was no venom in him, then, not warm and sated and leaning into Chris like he’d ached for every inch of his skin—only calm surety, the deep blue of his eyes like river water in the low light, lazy and silvered, too still to hold the kind of force Chris knew he carried. 

He did know Peter’s answer; of course he did. He had, all along. 


End file.
